DRUG mule Melissa Reid’s parents are planning to fly to Peru for her 21st birthday as hopes fade for a quick transfer to a Scottish prison.

Published 17th March 2014

BEHIND BARS: Melissa Reid is imprisoned in the Peruvian capital Lima for attempting to smuggle £1.5m worth of cocaine out of the country [AP]

William and Debra Reid, from Lenzie, near Glasgow, had held off booking the August trip in case she was moved.

But last night officials at the Foreign Office claimed any transfer “would not be very quick”.

Reid is in the notorious Virgen De Fatima prison on the outskirts of the capital Lima.

Peru’s prison system is so overcrowded that inmates often sleep on floors, in corridors and even toilet areas.

Clean water is a rarity and diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis are rife.

Last year, Reid spent her 20th birthday being interrogated for eight hours by Peruvian authorities, just weeks after being nabbed with £1.5million worth of cocaine with Northern Irish pal Michaella McCollum Connolly, 20.